“Beatle Mania”

The Beatles: Ironically, their band name sounds like that of a small insect yet their fame was insurmountable. Before The Beatles became the “Beatle mania”, it all started out with Paul McCartney joining the Quarrymen where John Lennon played lead guitar. Their bass player was Stu Sutcliffe and but had no permanent drummers. Then 13 yr old George Harrison decided to join in and took the lead guitar from Lennon. It was in 1960 that Peter Best got the job as their drummer.

The band changed its name from The Quarrymen to The Silver Beatles then finally deciding to go with their famous artist name, “The Beatles”. When asked why, John Lennon would always say: “It came in a vision- a man appeared in a flaming pie and said unto us, “From this day on you are Beatles with an A”. Then he added saying they said “Thank you, Mister Man”. He would then laugh afterwards.

The band’s earliest gigs were playing in Hamburg, Germany, at the clubs there, every night. But In 1961 however, Sutcliffe decided to go solo and Paul had to do the bass. One thing Sutcliffe played a role in was with The Beatles’ image. Before leaving, it was his long hair that they copied. The “Beatle haircut" or “moptops" was one of the band’s trade marks. In 1962, Ringo Star replaced Pete Best with the drums and alas the music world was never the same.
The fist of their many famous track titles was “Love Me Do” and “I saw her standing there” in their 1st album was release in March 1963. They toured UK nonstop until 1966 and were internationally popular.

Their nickname was the “Fab Four” short for fabulous four. Their 1st famous album title, “Please Please Me” topped the charts, remaining in that position for 20 weeks and was replaced only when their second famous album title “With the Beatles” was released on November 22, 1963. “Beatle Mania” began in the USA with their single “I wanna hold your hand” in 1964. Their songs’ “lyrics”, “I wanna be your man”, “all my loving” and “Till there was you” in their second album, left all their female fans breathless during their concerts and men wanting to be them so badly, copied their moptops.

One thing that separated the Beatles from other artist that time was that their style of chord choice was more of minor than major. Meaning their chords were more of melancholic than what the people were used to thus The Beatles were able to sound fresh. The American musical community and American artists where shocked to see a group of very talented performers who wrote their own music, lyrics and arranged it themselves. Their good looks a big plus. Singing songs like “Lucy in the sky with diamonds”, a track title in their most famous album title, Sg. Peper’s Lonely Heart’s Club that released in June 1, 1967, the Beatles became one of the most popular celebrities in the world that time. Due to factors such as Difficulty in collaboration, Brian Epstein’s death and John’s relationship with Yoko Ono, the band broke up on 1970.

Trivia

John Lennon was shot outside his Manhattan apartment by Mark Chapman on Dec. 8, 1980. Sometime before his death in an interview, he told a magazine that “We are now more popular than Jesus” which made a lot of Christians around the world angry.
The band made a total of 19 full length albums in the United States alone.